ISLAMABAD: Over a hundred ministerial staffers of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) are waiting for longstanding ‘service scale up-gradation’ which has not been provided to them in clear violation of the Federal Service Tribunal’s directives issued in 2012.
As many as 111 employees in the FBR were waiting up-gradations which they were deprived of despite serving 20-25 years in the public sector. Many of them were serving on the same scale since decades, it is learnt here.
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Documents available with the Customs Today revealed that the FBR and the Ministry of Industries’ employees had filed petitions for up-gradation of the post of Assistant (Ministerial staff) from BPS-14 to BPS-16. The last petition was filed in current year which yielded Federal Service Tribunal’s directives, on February 10, for immediate implementation of tribunal’s direction to decide the departmental appeals of the appellants issued in 2012.
The FST comprising Dr Nazir Saeed, M Javed Iqbal and Ishtiaq Ahmad also directed the Establishment Division, Finance Division, Law and Justice Division and Federal Board of Revenue to decide the departmental appeals of the appellants within two months. However, the tribunal’s directives had gone ineffective since none of ministerial staffers were up-graded to BPS-16.
An inquiry into the matter disclosed that instead of pursuing the ways to their up-gradation, the concerned departments tried to delay the matter as the Finance Division estimated Rs 7.66 million cost of assistants up-gradation to BPS-16.
Following the Finance Division’s cost estimates, Establishment Division delivered the file to PM house along with Finance Division’s office order mentioning cost of up-gradation.
FST’s decision also indicated the terms of engagement between appellants (petitioner employees) and respondents stating that the respondents were averse to the genuine demand of the appellants.
However, the order maintained clear direction in favor of assistants up-gradation to the BPS-16 mentioning senior auditors and stenographers of the same scale were promoted to BPS-16 whereas assistants were still languishing in BPS-14. The judgment stated that up-gradation of senior auditors and stenographers were an admitted fact, and issued directions to the concerned authorities to decide the departmental appeals within two months. The tribunal further referred the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government move in which it enhanced the scale of assistants to BPS-16.
Amid growing concerns about their up-gradations, assistant staffers of FBR and other departments were curious about how PM House would deal the matter further. On the condition of anonymity, they complained that sluggish conduct of concerned departments’ top-brass was tantamount to violating their basic-service rights and had left them helpless, exploited.
They demanded the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to take notice of the matter pertaining to their up-gradation from BPS-14 to BPS-16 in accordance with the FST’s directives. Else, the up-gradation matter may fall prey to bureaucratic delay further and would cause more suffering for them, they expressed.
